Soon..... soooooooonnnnnnn!!!!

[unfy]

Starting to prepare to my return for SCIENCE'ing!

Last year was rough.  Lots going on in personal life.

I picked up a drill press (handy for lots of things, but in particular something dangerousdrummer did regarding copper plating)...

Ingot'd a bunch of scrap lead (including pipes recently acquired here from NFOA member)...

Deprimed a bunch of old brass and am running it through the RCBS u/s cleaner...

Bought some stuff in preparation for power coating jig stuff...

Bought some fire bricks as slowly gathering stuff for making electric shop furnace to melt aluminum....

Sooooooooooooonnnnnnnnn

[bkoenig]

Melting aluminum?  Going to start casting AR lowers?

[on the fritz]

Cool.  Pretty soon you will be able to just go pick up raw materials off the ground and make something useful from it. 

What are are your plans for smelting the aluminum?

[unfy]

LOL.

No.

I don't think so at least.

Casting aluminum is neat. It can be done cheaply with some metal coffee cans / paint cans, charcoal, etc.... or ya can build an electric furnace for around $200.  I've been slowly collecting the parts to make the furnace.

Sadly, I think that the aluminum casting will insist that i end up getting a metal mill & lathe eventually as well though .

Anyhoo... there are times when I want a metal part or something ... it'd be nice to just make it myself.

[NE Bull]

aka Dr. Doofenshmirt? 

[NE Bull]

Ant hill molds?  (You tube it if you haven't seen it. )

[unfy]

Ant hill molds?  (You tube it if you haven't seen it. )

Yeah I've seen those.  Quite cool, but that's a lot of aluminum.

The furnace I'm building will melt 2-3 pints worth of liquid, not enough for the big ant hill mold things.

And as far as those pointing at firearms stuff... I don't think I'd trust something I made to not blow up in my own face.  Don't get me wrong, AK parts or 1911 or something would be sweet... but... no.


As far as this forum - I was thinking more like custom parts for reloading press...

It's one of those things, also, where I'd need to start casting stuff to figure out exactly what uses I can find for it.  But - casting your own metal stuff (other than lead) ? Cool to do

[shooter]

will you try to cast bullets out of the aluminum ?

[unfy]

will you try to cast bullets out of the aluminum ?

No. 

First reason: there are some rules regarding what bullets can be made out of, how thick their jackets are, what kind of core they might have etc.  Basically, federal hand gun ammo rules have a list of things that are considered 'anti personnel' and therefore illegal.  No titanium cores, jackets comprising more than 25% of the weight, etc etc etc.  I don't recall if aluminum is in that list or not.... but I don't think it's worth the annoyance of looking it up again .

Now, rifle rounds are fine, though.


The other reasons for it would be that aluminum might tear up your barrel, dunno about friction issues concerning stove piping and pressure spikes and such.

If I had a cheap p.o.s. rifle I didn't care about, maybe.

And lastly - you really wanna go from a heavy metal like lead to a super light metal like aluminum ?  Just look at the differences between total copper bullets vs jacketed or cast lead.  Or steel shot vs lead shot.

I suppose I could make a shotgun slug.

[unfy]

Grabbed some of these tonight:

http://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/roofing-soffits-gutters/roofing/roof-edge-tools-accessories/5-lb-tin-tab-roofing-disc/p-1934667-c-5817.htm

You can get them in 25lb bags online ($27/25lb with cheap/free ship to store?), or possibly at other stores.  But even at $10/5lb - assuming they melt and are actually tin - that's a hell of a lot cheaper than lead free solder (at $25/lb).

I'll do some casting soon to see how it goes and report back.


I grabbed the Gingery Lathe book.  So after furnace is belt, can possibly start to build something 'useful'.  Online searches seem to suggest using some steel ways instead of trying to cast them yourself.  The steel being a better bed material anyway (won't get chewed up by chips) and will be 'perfect' (unlike casts due to size).


This guy talks about a drill press -> mill conversion:

http://www.teeterconsulting.com/machine/Making_a_Vertical_Milling_Machine.html

There's a $50 four hour dvd to buy by someone else, but since it appears to work - but it's tempting.  An immediate take away from the above page that seems interesting is filling the drill press vertical post with concrete to help limit deflection etc.  Seems practical to do for every press anyway ?


Looking into thoughts on can crushing to help make better alloy - a 3" metal tube seems to be a decent start as a compression body.  I know they make 3" fence posts, but can't seem to find one.  Which is prolly okay - a hand fence post hammer is $18 and i think has a workable inner diameter.  From there it's a matter of a ram (either human powered or a jack or something).


Not applicable for me due to position of house and such, but my brother in TN is building a 'solar soda can heater'.  Seems like a pretty easy and practical project.

http://hackedgadgets.com/2011/11/16/solar-pop-can-heater-system-build-roundup/

The heat folks claim to get out of these things seems like it'd definitely take a chunk out of a heating bill, and thrown in a back yard or side of a shop or something it doesn't really throw off 'visual appeal'.

[unfy]

)!(%@*)!(@%*)!(%*

The 'tin' roofing discs are magnetic.

*pissed*


edit:

Wait.  Tin is magnetic ?! 

Learn something new.

Will see how it melts later.

re-edit: hit it with a 725 degree soldering iron. nada.  owell.

[JTH]

Wait.  Tin is magnetic ?!


re-edit: hit it with a 725 degree soldering iron. nada.  owell.

  Yep, tin is magnetic.   In two different ways, oddly enough.

Also, Tin melts at about 450 degrees F, so your soldering iron attempt result is----odd.  Sure your soldering iron reaches the temperature it is supposed to, these days?  (Solder melts a LOT easier than 725, so....)

[bkoenig]

With the price of tin I would be very surprised if those discs are actually tin.  Maybe tin coated or something.

[shooter]

flashing is usually galvanized steel

[Phantom]

The Roofing Disc's he's playing with Might not be all Tin 

What's more likely is they are an Alloy or some other metal coated with Tin to stop corrosion

[unfy]

Consensus appears to be maybe have just kept name 'tin' or that it's just tin plated or might be just pure galvanized steel aye.

Anyway, it went back to the store and swapped it out for some cheap not-plywood for use as former when ramming the refactory for furnace melter thing ... and a dremel rotozip bit to cut circles out of said plywood.

And yeah, $10 for 5lbs of tin did seem like too good to be true... but a lot of construction stuff doesn't have to be 'pure' and so if it was basically 'dirty tin' i would have been happy just the same.

I'll just have to hit ebay and stuff for cheap solder rolls.

[unfy]

Aluminum furnace is beginning construction phase.  I have everything, or it's been ordered.

I've cut the legs and drilled them for mounting (first use of personal drill press yay).  Today I hope to get the formers-out-of-plywood cut and the air duct sheered.  The tin snips I have aren't designed right -- they've got the hinge directly behind the blades - making long non-destructive cuts nigh impossible .

Dan Hartman's book / pdf talks about using a regular light dimmer as a temperature control thing (with some extra hardware).  I *finally* figured out how it works which is great to know.  So for a second build, or as an upgrade to this one later ... I'll consider it. 

For this first build - since I'm bugging Paul @ Budgetcastingsupply.com for some info / help - I'm buying some of his stuff as a thank you (and it's a known working setup).  Basically the infinite range control and a heating element.  Later on I'll construct my own temp control (see above) and wind my own elements.

Also picked up some quickcrete 'fine sand' - seems like it might do nicely as half of the components for green sand.  The bentonite clay looks like it'll be a bit more annoying to come across.  I tried one nursery, they aint open currently, and another was wholesale only.  I'll have to look around for other nurseries.  Cat's Pride brand cat litter is bentonite clay - but would require building a ball mill or something to get it crushed.  Too bad can't just stuff it between a couple sheets of plywood and just drive over it a few times